Fikile Mbalula reiterated his previous statement that he did not need authorisation from the national executive committee to send people to the disciplinary committee. Picture: Independent Newspapers
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said he would haul ill-disciplined members to the disciplinary hearing.
Speaking at the Peter Mokaba Memorial Lecture in Khayelitsha on Friday, Mbalula said they were in the process of reviving the ANC.
“We are to build the organisation. We will renew it,” he said.
Mbalula also said the renewal process was painful because it talked of the step-aside rule.
“If you are in the wrong, you will be dealt with by the renewal.”
He said they wanted discipline among ANC members.
“Discipline is not a lip service. A person who leads the organisation and does not have discipline will be sent to disciplinary proceedings.”
He told the hundreds of Youth League members that there would be many ill-disciplined members he would send to the disciplinary proceedings.
“Watch out in January how many I will send. I will discipline them. It will not be nice,” he said.
Earlier this week, he announced that veteran Tony Yengeni and former deputy minister Obed Bapela will be taken to a disciplinary committee.
Mbalula reiterated his previous statement that he did not need authorisation from the national executive committee to send people to the disciplinary committee.
“We were elected to lead and we will lead.”
He warned those who don’t want to be led to give the way.
“We must be disciplined. You can’t have an organisation with members that are opposition within,” he said in an apparent reference to Yengeni for his late-night tweets.
Without mentioning him by name, Mbalula said some comrades tweeted not to defend the ANC but brought the party into disrepute.
“They don’t defend the ANC. They defend themselves.”
Mbalula also said the ANC national leadership was united.
“Our unity is not unity of convenience. It is unity of purpose. We don’t unite for wrong things. We must not unite with wrongness in the organisation,” he said.
Mbalula said the Youth League members’ task was to protect the integrity and image of the party.
“They must serve as a bulwark of unity and cohesion of the ANC.
“Learn to listen and respect the opinion of others. The task of youths is to get role models in our ranks. The youth must lead in terms of ideas of what needs to be done.”
Mbalula sang praises of Mokaba, the former Youth League president who was popularly known as the Lion of the North.
“He is the one who was militant and an organic intellectual. He was a soldier of uMkhonto weSizwe and our leader of youth in South Africa and led diligently, militantly, and radically the South African Youth Congress and later the ANCYL. He was an ex-Robben Islander. He taught us the importance of political education in our ranks.”
He urged the ANCYL when they remember Mokaba to be able to say what the challenges were to liberate the people and the youth in particular.
Mbalula also said the youth have vehicles created for them in the form of the Youth League.
“You have got a leadership that leads the struggles of the people. Young people don’t work, there must be job creation. Our economy must respond. You must push us for certain things to happen,” he added.
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za